Nature's Bounty
by Game Ghost
Summary: A man has put a bounty on himself and has started a war between himself and all bounty hunters based off of a conservationist's book. The conditions for the bounty have all bounty hunters at war with each other as well


I do not own anything in this story. I have read Aldo Leopold's book: A Sand County Almanac. I liked it so much that I felt this story would be interesting if I introduced one of his concepts. I want to say right now that Mr. Leopold's book revolves around nature and any other views from characters in this story is something thought up by me. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Leopold and hope many others will read his book for years to come.

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"Howdy Pawdnuhs!" Punch, the announcer of Big Shot, called out. "How y'all doin?"

"It's time for Big Shot!" said the giddy blonde co-announcer Judy. The crew of the Cowboy Bebop was lazily laying around their ship on the day all the trouble started. Jet was cooking plain noodles in the kitchen, Faye was painting her nails another shade of red, Ed was playing computer games, Ein was licking his butt, and Spike had his nose buried in a magazine filled with nude women.

"We got big news for y'all top bounty hunters out there!" Punch said. "The reward for this bounty is a whopping two billion woolongs cowpokes!" The entire crew stopped what they were doing and glued their eyes to the screen, each fighting for a spot on the couch to get a good view.

"Oh my, Punch!" Judy said sounding astounded. "Two billion is the biggest bounty in all of bounty history sugah! This one is gonna be a big catch huh?"

"Shee-ucks Judy" Punch said "The pawdnuh who brings in this bad boy will be living easy for life!"

"Come on!" shouted Faye. "Get to the damned bounty!"

"Shut up Faye! We have to hear" said Jet.

"This one is an odd scoop here though desperados!" Punch said. "The bounty was placed on this man…" shows a picture of a skinny man with dark black hair and an odd smirk, "by himself cowpokes!"

"What!?" shouted the crew in disbelief.

"What do ya mean Punch?" asked Judy in an extra ditsy pose.

"Just like I said there Judy!" Punch explained. "This fella, Yakushiro Watanabe, has placed a bounty of 2 billion woolongs on himself! Wait!" Punch put his finger to his ear piece. "We have breaking news! We have the feller on a live chat! We are going to pull him on screen now buckaroos!"

An intern pushes a television set on the set and turns it on, showing Yakushiro wearing a nice white suit and sitting on a nice leather chair.

"Thank ya steve!" Punch says to the intern pushing him off the set. "That will be all!"

"Hey there sugah" Judy said to the television set. "Is there something you need to tell us?"

The man on the television smiled sincerely and said,

"Yes miss Judy. I have a few things to say. Most of which are the details involving my bounty."

"That's a good idear there buckaroo" Punch said. "We've got calls comin in all across the galaxy asking for the details and now we get to hear them straight from the bounty's mouth!" Punch laughed obnoxiously at his own lame joke. Yakushiro frowned, unimpressed and brushed it off.

"Well" started Yakushiro stopping Punch's laughter. "I have indeed put a large bounty on myself. That was no mistake. There are only two conditions for the reward. The number one condition…" he said pausing to lean in to the camera. "You have to kill me" he said with an insane smirk on his face.

"Are you insane?" asked Judy breaking character for an instant. "You're going to get your ass nailed to the wall! I mean…" she said getting back into character and using her ditzy voice. "Y'all want to put a bounty on yourself and be killed? That plum don't make no sense sugah!"

Yakushiro was amused that he had gotten Judy to drop her bimbo persona, and continued grinning.

"Not at the moment no, miss Judy. I will start with a story. A few years back I explored the remains of Earth. Very little is known about it from the general public but archeologists know my work very well. I searched and searched and finally found many priceless works of art, ancient technology, and fossilized remains. I made myself a fortune selling these items to museums and private collectors. All of which totaled up to my 2 billion woolong empire."

The Bebop crew wrote everything down for future reference. Every word was scribbled into each of their personalized notebooks. Faye was taking down every word, Jet was busy holding his notebook copying down the things he saw in the background of Yakushiro's live video, and Spike was doing his best to find his notebook.

"Has anyone seen my notebook, its denim, says "badass" on it, and has a picture of a kitten?" Spike said.

"Shut up!" shouted Faye who was trying to listen.

"Among my treasures…" Yakushiro continued, "Was this book." He said holding up a faded paperback copy of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. "I read it…many times" he said flipping through it. "The most memorable part I read a chapter from when he was working for the government on wildlife preservation and he and a group of other preservationists, shot a wolf, knowing with less wolves there would be a greater amount of prey for hunters to shoot. He talks about how back then they would hunt and shoot wolves so more deer could ultimately live, but it backfired and many deer started dying off because there were no wolves keeping their population in check. There was no omnipresent predator that made sure the deer didn't grow so large that they would eventually overpopulate and starve to death due to lack of food."

"Jeez, this guy talks a lot" Spike said

"Shhhhuuushh!" Faye and Jet said together.

"Well I noticed a startling trend amongst us today" Yakushiro said pulling out several papers with long lists of names and occupations. "As you two know" He said to Punch and Judy. "There are about three hundred thousand bounty hunters in the universe. Each of which makes a living by catching criminals. But there lies the problem. There are too many wolves out there." He said in an almost whisper. "There is an average of ten thousand bounties out at any given time in the universe. The amount of bounty hunters is disproportionate to the number of bounties."

"But I'm all confused baby doll" Judy said. "What's all them big words got to do with your bounty on yourself?"

"I am getting to that miss Judy" Yakushiro said smiling still. "As I said there are too many bounty hunters out there. I want to lower their numbers. That is why the second condition for my bounty is that the 2 billion woolongs I have is going to be equally distributed amongst every active bounty hunter in the universe."

Jet, Faye, and Spike all felt their jaws drop. Punch and Judy's jaws dropped as well.

"This is where the fun begins" Yakushiro said growing an evil smirk. "Every bounty hunter who is active will get a share of my bounty as soon as I am caught."

"But hun, that barely comes out to seven thousand woolongs a bounty hunter" Judy said in her ditzy voice, not realizing her intellect was showing.

"True Judy, very true" said Yakushiro. "and with this announcement I am sure that many other people will sign up to become bounty hunters as well, trying to get a piece of my bounty." The bebop crew was about to turn the television off. "However, I am making it even more interesting. I and a crew of mercenaries will be scouring the universe killing anyone with a bounty hunter license. Essentially increasing the shares of each individual bounty hunter. I imagine several bounty hunters themselves won't pass up the opportunity to kill off a few of their fellow bounty hunters to increase their own profit."

"That is the game, to kill me and collect a share of the two billion woolong reward, all the while killing your fellow bounty hunters to increase your own share. My friends and I will be randomly killing off bounty hunters to weed out the weak ones." Yakushiro explained. "You two…" he said to Punch and Judy. "Will receive updates from me on every bounty hunter we kill, and will announce their names on your show. Everyone else…" he said turning back to the main camera "you will monitor the official licensed bounty hunter membership list and see how many bounty hunters there are and where they are located at any given time. Good luck and happy hunting" he said turning off his camera and ending the transmission.

"Well, pawdnuhs…" Punch said breathless. "I guess the big shootout is on…"

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Thanks for everyone who helped inspire this story, tell me how you like it.

-GG


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